


and past, and present all as one

by lovedontroam



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Book of Nile, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Immortal Husbands, Immortal Wives, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, so much sadness you guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovedontroam/pseuds/lovedontroam
Summary: Soulmarks only scar over if your soulmate dies. She had seen it with her mother's mark when her father passed.Nile turns her torso side to side to see if it could have been a trick of the light. She must have imagined it. After all, no one gets their mark back after it fades.A Book of Nile Soulmates AU
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 117
Kudos: 285





	1. Prologue

Nile has always loved her soulmark.

It runs down her ribs, a twisting, turning, blue line that hooks to the side at the base. The line then swirls into a shape resembling an open book right above her hip. 

“Your soulmate must love you a whole lot for their mark to be that big,” her father teases. 

When she is seven years old, Nile decides that she is going to try to read every book in the Chicago Public Library. She knows that books will be really important to whoever her mark belongs to, and she wants to prove that she is going to be a really good soulmate. Every Saturday she begs her mother to please, please, please take them on the L to the library branch downtown. Mama smiles indulgently and loads Indus into his stroller, book bags ready for them by the door.

For years all she tells her father about on their calls are the new stories she’s read. 

“—and then, Dustfinger sacrifices himself to bring Farid back. I cried so hard, Mama came upstairs to check on me. Oh! Indy’s reading Harry Potter now! I made mama promise that she’ll take Indy and me to Barnes and at midnight when Deathly Hallows comes out next year. Will you be on leave by then? Maybe we can go together!”

“We’ll see, baby girl. Now, tell me something else.”

“Hm, well, Lakiyah and I have been talking about it, and we still think that I’m gonna meet my soulmate at the library. She says that she thinks it’s gonna be some big ol’ nerd. I don’t care if they’re a nerd though, I just hope they’re nice and I meet them soon.”

His low laugh rumbled over the phone line. “There’s no rush, sweetheart. You have plenty of time.”

“I wanna be in love like you and mama,” she mumbles, a little embarrassed.

Her mother’s mark rested on her collarbone: a red six-pointed star wreathed in edelweiss. Her father’s matching mark sat up on the side of his neck, his star surrounded by ivy. When she was little, Nile would climb into her mother’s bed and curl up in her arms, resting her head on the mark and imagining her father was there with them.

“It takes time for this sorta thing, Nile. You’re still young. Besides, you have to wait until I’m home so I can decide whether or not they’re good enough for my little girl.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever, dad.”

“I’ve got to go. I love you, baby.”

“I love you too. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Not three days later, Nile and Indy come home from school to their mother weeping at the kitchen table. The color in her soulmark has faded and scarred over. Their father is gone.

For a while, Nile feels too much. For a longer while, she feels nothing. 

Her brother is the one who pulls her out of it. He’s ten years old and too full of life to let a death slow him down for too long. They spend long evenings tucked next to each other on the battered couch, watching cartoons and talking about school. Apparently, two other fourth graders at his school are a match. Indy thinks that this is disgusting. Nile thinks it’s sweet. She still clings to the idea of this perfect person out there. She’s in the middle of pinning a giggling Indy to the sofa while telling a long, over-dramatic version of her ideal meet-cute with her soulmate when her mother gets home. 

“Momma, how did you and dad meet?” Indy chirps, his face still smushed into the couch cushion.

Her eyes go far away. She stammers out an apology, then goes upstairs. She doesn’t reemerge for a long time.

Nile stops talking about finding her soulmate. Her mother is being so strong, handling her grief with dignity, and Nile doesn’t want to make things harder for her.

She has more important things to worry about. 

She throws herself into her schoolwork. College isn’t cheap, and she has ambitions. As soon as she starts high school she joins the soccer team, the debate team, and the art club. She makes dinner for Indy on nights where mom ends up working a double. She is full steam ahead, refusing to slow down even for a moment. 

Nile is fifteen the first time she sees her soulmate die.

Well, she doesn't see them die per say. She sees her mark scar over.

Surprisingly, she doesn’t feel anything physically. She thought there would be a tingle or shock if it ever happened. She’s pulling her sweaty soccer jersey off after she gets home from practice and just happens to see the mark start fading. She stares in horror as the blue turns to grey.

Then, as quickly as it was gone, her mark was back. 

She turns her torso side to side to see if it could have been a trick of the light. She pulls a new shirt on quickly, trying to ignore her racing heart. She must have imagined it. No one gets their mark back after it fades.

* * *

Booker swears as he scrambles to his feet. It had been over a decade since he had died and he had wanted to keep that streak going.

“Okay, Book?” Andy kneels down behind the jeep they're using as cover, holding their position while Booker regains his bearings. 

“Oui. Let’s go.” 

* * *

  
  



	2. Chapter I: Nile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nile grows up.

Nile decides not to tell anybody about her soulmark. She was probably imagining it anyway. Even so, she starts to avoid being shirtless in front of anyone. She waits until the locker room is empty before she changes. Her friends are banned from dressing rooms when they’re at the mall. She starts favoring one-piece swimsuits and loose, dark tops. 

She catches her mark scarring over and coming back twice more before the year’s out. She’s starting to worry.

Her first boyfriend is not her soulmate. 

His name is Shaun, and he’s a junior to her sophomore. He hears through the grapevine that she has a book (thanks, Lakiyah) and he’s hanging around her locker after class one day. Shaun shows her the sketchy book surrounded by odd shapes and blobs of color nestled at the crook of his elbow, hope shining in his eyes. She knows immediately that it’s not him, but agrees on a date, just to see.

One date turns to two, turns to three, turns to him slinging his letterman jacket over her shoulders in the hallway, and her slipping her hand into the back pocket of his jeans as they walk to class. He makes her happy.

That doesn’t change the fact that every time he tries to run his hand up under her shirt, she stops him. It’s not that he doesn’t trust him, and they definitely take part in all the awkward high school fumblings they can make time for, but her mark is something private. She’s worried it’s going to scar while her shirt’s off. She wouldn’t know how to explain that.

They are together for three months before Shaun meets the daughter of one of his father’s coworkers and discovers their match. The breakup is quiet, graceful. Nile isn’t too upset. That’s just how it is.

Her second relationship is with a girl from her soccer team named Skye.

Skye makes her laugh. She has a cluster of overlapping red circles that could be balloons or cherries or something else entirely on her left shoulder blade. Nile likes her smile, likes her wit, likes her biting sarcasm, likes the way she looks in her soccer jersey. They become a team on and off the field, and Nile thinks she could fall in love with her. 

They’re a couple months into their relationship when they have the talk.

“What do you mean you don’t believe in them?”

They’re watching America’s Next Top Model reruns on Nile’s ratty couch after practice. Mama Freeman is working late, so Nile picked up enough pizzas for a small army and now they’re just hanging out, stomachs bloated, yelling at Tyra for her shitty modeling challenges. They’re doing a challenge where the girls have to put together a look that showcases the ‘feel’ of their soulmark. It’s tacky as hell.

“I mean, it seems like bullshit that out of the 7 billion people on the planet you are destined for one and only one person. What about asexuals? What about polyamorous people?”

“There are stories about people with more than one mark. And you can have a platonic soulmate.”

Skye snorts, kicking her feet up into Nile’s lap. “Okay I guess. But it’s a shitty system. Look at my parents. They were together for fifteen years. Thought they were soulmates. Then this new woman walks into the picture and it turns out she’s a better match for my dad’s mark and he just leaves my mom then and there. As far as I’m concerned, they’re corny tattoos that make people make bad decisions.”

“My parents were a perfect match.”

“Yeah, and now your mom is sad forever because her mark is faded.”

Nile considers telling her about her own mark. She decides against it.

After she kisses Skye goodbye and starts cleaning up the mess they’ve made, she hears a small voice from the top of the stairs. 

“You don’t believe her, right?”

Indy is sitting at the top step. He’s 14 and taller than she is, but the blanket around his shoulders makes him look so small. 

She sighs and beckons him down the stairs. “Hot chocolate?”

He practically teleports down the stairs he’s moving so fast. She gets out the milk and chocolate and starts heating up the stove.

“I don’t believe her, not really,” she pours the milk into a sauce pan, “but I see her point.”

“I think you just think she’s cute.”

“She is cute. Her parents just split, which sucks.”

Indy nods and sits down at the table. “I still believe in soulmates. I’m going to find mine.”

Nile hums in agreement, slowly stirring in the chocolate and spices. Indy has a swirling wave shape at the hollow of his throat, his heart on display for all to see. 

“You’ve got time,” she says, pouring him a mug. “You’ve got years left. They’ll find their way to you eventually. And then I will personally apologize to them about what a freaking dork they’re stuck with forever.”

He very maturely sticks his tongue out. 

“Cute. Wanna listen to my Harry Potter tapes until mama gets home?”

“…yes.”

They drag the ancient boombox mama kept just for the books on tape they’ve collected over the years into the living room and drink their coco to the soothing sounds of Jim Dale’s voice. Indy knocks their socked feet together where they’re propped up on the coffee table. 

She breaks up with Skye not too long after. She needs to focus on her studies. 

Throughout all of this, her mark keeps acting up. She once stood by the mirror and watched it fade and come back five times over the course of ten minutes. She googles every possible explanation and comes up empty. Marks don’t do this when someone is in a coma, or even if they flat line and come back. They only fade if your soulmate dies. Like, buried, gone, dead.

She thinks about posting on some forums, but decides against it. She doesn’t want to be some medical oddity, poked and prodded by doctors. There are whole websites now dedicated to finding your match and she scrolls through for hours looking for a mark like her’s. She can’t find anything. Eventually, she gives up. She’ll find out what’s going on when she finally meets whoever it is. Maybe her soulmate is a ghost, or a zombie or something. That makes about as much sense as anything else.

She decides to join the marines not long after her breakup with Skye. College is expensive, and she doesn’t want to be drowning in loans for the rest of her life. Her mother is proud of her, but Nile catches her wiping a tear from her eye every once in a while. Indy is proud of her too, in his own idiot-little-brother way. 

As she drops her duffle on her bunk at basic, she wonders if she’ll find her soulmate in the service. She hopes wherever they are, they’re safe and happy.

Seven years later, while she bleeds out in Dizzy’s arms, she wonders if they’ll see their mark scar over right away, or catch it in the mirror later. She wishes she could apologize to her mother. She wishes she could say goodbye to her brother. The last thought she has before everything goes black is that she’ll never get to find out what’s wrong with her mark. Then there is nothing but darkness.

* * *

On a train hundreds of miles away, Booker wakes from a dream. Joe’s sketchbook is already in his hands, and Nicky is rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Andy is propped against the far wall, swearing. Booker doesn’t notice the long, twisting blue line down his arm scar over and fade to grey.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been overwhelmed by the positive response so far! Thank you all so much!
> 
> A special thank you to the Book of Nile group over on tumblr, who are the best kind of enablers.
> 
> I know I said Nicky's POV was next but that is going to be an interlude posted later. I wanted to get this groundwork finished first. We'll be getting POV for the whole Guard, but this is primarily a Book of Nile piece. 
> 
> If you want to come scream at me I'm love-dont-roam on tumblr. Thank you for reading!


	3. Interlude I

Nicolò was born face-up. It was a bad omen for him, and a death sentence for his mother. It also meant that no one saw his soulsign until the midwife flipped him over to pound his back, trying to force air into his lungs. A sun sat at the base of his neck, rendered stylistically with a jasmine blossom in the center. He barely whimpered as the midwife wiped his mother’s lifeblood away.

“Call the wet-nurse. He’ll die within the week, but we may as well ease his way.”

But Nicolò de Genova did not die. He was a pale, small child, but soon grew into his spindly frame. His father could not bear to look at him, so the responsibility for his education fell to his two older brothers: Roberto and Phillippe. They taught him to read a little, and write even less. The most important thing was how to hold a sword. He practiced until the blisters on his hands wept. 

He asked about their marks only once.

“What does it mean?” He reached out and touched the curling grapevine that circled Phillippe’s wrist. 

“It’s a soulsign. You have one as well.” His brother tapped on the back of the neck. “It’s the mark of the person that the Almighty has seen fit to intertwine your soul with. Everyone has one from birth. The signs are all different, but they reveal something about your soulmate’s character. Or perhaps their location or place your paths will cross. The Almighty works in mysterious ways.”

Roberto pulled the collar of his tunic aside to reveal a small bird atop some sort of glyph on his shoulder. “Papà doesn’t like us to speak of them.”

Nicolò tried to crane his neck around to see his own mark. “Why not?”

“His sign faded when mama died.”

His ears burned as they often did when his mother was mentioned. He knows that his father would rather have his wife alive than a scrawny, pale, third son. 

“What does mine look like?”

Roberto turned him by the shoulders and considered the mark. “A sun with some sort of flower in the center.”

“Five petals. Like a star.” Phillippe added, considering.

Nicolò nodded and reached around to touch the base of his neck. “My soulmate,” he whispered to himself, a secret smile playing around his lips.

Years later as he’s charging across the battlefield at the siege of Jerusalem, he spares a thought for his soulmate, and prays their forgiveness for never seeking them out. 

The battlefield is chaos. The moors are still trying to defend their crumbling walls, and the crusaders are getting desperate. Nicolò’s horse is taken down by arrows before he even gets to the wall. He manages to throw himself from the saddle before the frightened beast crushes him, then picks himself up and wades into the melee. He soon finds that this battle is more about keeping one’s feet on terrain slippery with blood than skill with the sword. He wishes he was at range so he could use his crossbow, but his commander had put him here: in hell. 

It is hard to make out anything in the muck and carnage, but then he locks eyes with a moor across a gap in the fighting. 

It feels like destiny.

The man’s hands tighten on his scimitar, and then they are charging at one another. The man meets him blow-for-blow, fury twisting his face. Nicolò presses in closer, trying to find a break in his defense. The man is like a hurricane, sword slashing faster and faster. Finally, Nicolò’s guard fails, and the man cuts up into his belly. His world goes white with pain, but he takes this last opening and runs his own sword through the man’s chest. The moor falls to his knees, taking Nicolò with him. He pulls his sword from the man, panting with agony. He knows that this is the end. 

The last thing he sees before his eyes close is the crescent moon on the back of the man’s sword hand, a single jasmine blossom cradled in the center.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who had sun and moon symbolism on their Old Guard bingo card? 
> 
> Thank you for hanging in there with me so far. I'll try posting at least once daily but I make no promises. 
> 
> Next Up: Booker


	4. Chapter II: Booker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker gains immortality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Self Harm, Alcoholism. Details in the endnote.

These two things are true: Sebastien le Livre’s wife is not his soulmate, and this does not matter to him one bit.

He fell in love with Eugenia the moment he laid eyes on her. He presses a kiss onto the sprig of violets splayed across her hip every morning when they wake. He loves her, he loves their boys, he loves their life together. So when he is caught with his pockets full of forged francs and stolen bank notes, he weeps for Eugenia and the boys. He is given a choice: execution or enlistment. He would rather take his chances with the Russians than make his wife watch his head be removed from his shoulders. Napoleon’s Grand Army it is. 

Sebastien vaguely wonders if he will encounter his soulmate on their march. Perhaps soul marks are different in some foreign lands. He would not know; he has never left Marseille before now, and he has definitely never encountered anyone with a mark that even vaguely resembles his. 

It’s enormous as far as soulmarks, a long, meandering, blue line that starts at the knob of his shoulder and trails down his bicep, splitting into two tributaries that swirl together to form a single lotus blossom. He thinks it might be a lightning strike, or maybe a river. It doesn’t matter. Soulmate or no soulmate, he has his Eugenia and that it more than enough. 

He sets out with his compatriots, knowing that his love for his family will keep him safe and whole. 

Then he dies.

Suddenly, everything is different. He spends three days hanging from those gallows, dying and dying again, trying not to alert the soldiers still milling about the camp. By the time he is able to shake himself free of the noose, he is starving, frostbitten, and all alone. What will he do? Alone, stripped of all valuables and warm clothes. He doesn’t know if he is truly real or not. Could this all be some sort of hallucination? Is this divine punishment for his sins?

He does the only think he knows to do and trudges back the way the column marched. He’ll return to France, to his family. His debt to Napoleon is paid. No one need know what occurred here. 

_Well_ , he thinks as he scratches his arm through his sleeve, _one person knows_.

There’s no way his soulmate missed their mark fading so many times. Perhaps they think he is dead now. He surprises himself by feeling the pang of that little loss. He would never abandon Eugenia and the boys, of course, but sadness still creeps into his soul.

He walks for four months. Strange dreams haunt his sleep. He dies more times than he can count. When he finally arrives back in Marseille, he is more of a corpse than a man. 

His home is empty, family gone and windows shuttered. 

He stands in the street, eyes wide in disbelief. It cannot be.

He sees an old man hurrying across the street, shoulders hunched against the cold.

“Monsieur? Monsieur!” He rushes to stop the old man, to beg for an explanation. “What has happened to the family that lived here? Where are the le Livres?”

“Oh! I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Monsieur, but the le Livres are gone. M. le Livre is dead in the war. Fortunately, the Madame moved the family to London after discovering her soulmate. Quite scandalous, a widow marrying so soon after her husband’s passing, but who can disagree with a soul match involved?”

Sebastian nods, numb. He turns from the man and begins walking. 

“Excuse me, Monsieur? Monsieur, are you quite alright?”

He lets the man’s voice wash over him. He doesn’t know where to go, but he cannot be here. He cannot be where they once were so happy. 

He crashes down an alleyway, sobs wracking his frame. In the morning, he will make a plan. Tonight, he weeps.

The next few weeks pass in much the same way. His sleep is haunted by strange dreams. He has visions of drowning or dying or living so strangely it wakes him early without fail. He spends the rest of his day committing petty crimes and chasing the bottom of a bottle before squatting in his own home. Sebastien le Livre is dead.

He considers following Eugenia and the children to London. He is ashamed that it is not for Eugenia’s sake that he doesn’t. The truth is that he is a coward. If he could find them, how would he go about convincing her to come back? How could he tell her to leave her new husband, her soulmate, for him, a fugitive? A dead man? He could not bear to see the expression on her face. 

Instead, he quietly drowns his hope with cheap wine. 

As time wears on, bitterness seeps into his bones. How could she do this to him? How could she believe he would leave them? How could she accept his death so easily?

Why would the universe put them together to tear them apart? He curses her, her soulmate, his own traitorous heart.

One particularly drunken night, Sebastien takes a knife to his own soulmark. He tries and tries to scrape away this symbol of the universe’s capriciousness. It’s back within ten minutes, whole and unscathed. His fate is sealed. He weeps.

One afternoon in the spring, his dreams find him.

The distinct tinkle of a shattering windowpane wakes him from his sleep. By the time he blearily rolls to his feet, brandishing the knife he keeps with him for this purpose, there are three more people in his home.

The woman runs her eyes over him disdainfully. “Your form needs some work, Monsieur le Livre.”

His eyes dart across the three figures in the room. “You—you were in my dreams.”

One of the two men nods and holds out his hand. “Joseph. This is Nicolas and Andrea. We are sorry to barge in as such, but we have much to talk about.” 

Sebastien looks from his outstretched hand to his face. “They did not call you Joseph in the dreams.”

The man lets out a burst of laughter. “Yusuf, then, and Nicolò and Andromache.”

The man who must be Nicolò lets out a small chuckle as well. “We mean you no harm, Monsieur. We simply possess the answers to some questions you may be asking yourself.”

“As in…?”

“As in why you aren’t dead,” Andromache’s eyes are boring into Sebastien’s, “and why you continue not dying.” 

Sebastien stammers. “I’m sure I don’t know—” 

Quick as a flash, Andromache slashes a knife across her palm, holding it up so that he can see the blood stop flowing and the wound seal itself. “I’m sure you do.”

Yusuf sighs and shakes his head fondly. “Always the flair for the dramatic.”

Sebastien gapes. 

“I can stab myself of that proves my point more succinctly, but that tends to get messy.” The woman wipes the blade off on a handkerchief then tucks it away. “Now, Monsieur le Livre—” 

“I think I may be someone else, now, madame.” he manages. “Sebastien le Livre died in Russia. I must be someone new.”

“You are still yourself, sir. Your life is not over,” Nicolò murmurs, “Different, yes. But not over. But if you prefer not to be reminded of the past, we will not push you.”

Sebastien recovers and chuckles darkly. “My wife and children have already left me, my home is abandoned, my friends dead in the war. What else do I have to lose?”

Nicolò and Yusuf both frown in sympathy, but Andromache flashes him a grim smile. “That’s the spirit. Now, let us leave this place. We have many things to discuss.”

He leaves Marseille for the second time with an army of four. As they walk into the countryside, he refuses to look back. 

Sebastien le Livre won’t look back for the next two hundred years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Booker tries to scrape off his soulmark while drunk. He copes with his trauma with alcohol.
> 
> I heard you guys like trauma, so I got you some trauma. Poor Booker. Man just can't catch a break.
> 
> Thank you so much for your reviews!
> 
> Up Next: Andy


	5. Interlude II

Andromache has lost track of how old she is when her spirit sign fades for the first time.

The viper coiled on her forearm loses its color, distracting her as she parries another blow from an enemy swordsman. By the time all of the bandits’ blood is spilled and her labrys is sheathed, the sign is back. 

Her mind must be playing tricks on her. She holds her forearm up to her face, inspecting the flesh. The red viper still coiled down her forearm and around the archer’s bow at her wrist. She likes to keep her arms uncovered. Her sign makes her look dangerous. Well, she smirks down at her fallen foes, more dangerous. Nothing seems amiss. It must have been a trick of the light, or maybe dust from the road had briefly obscured her vision. 

She returns to her mare, wanting to put some distance between herself and the town she’d left a few days back. She’d been staying in one place for too long. People were getting suspicious.

That night, the dreaming begins. 

She sees the same woman every time she closes her eyes. Long dark hair and piercing eyes haunt her vision. There are flashes of blades, the screams of horses. There are tranquil sunrises and clay pots set over campfires. She sees the woman fighting, laughing, eating, sleeping. Even fucking, a few memorable occasions. 

She is content to push the visions to the back of her mind. She has no need for distractions. She’s perfectly capable of finding pretty young things to amuse herself on her own. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who the woman is. Andromache is always going to be alone.

It’s the night she sees the woman bathing that everything changes. There, in the valley between her breasts, is a black viper curled around a red labrys. Andromache’s labrys.

The woman is her spirit’s mate.

She doesn’t know whether the woman is real or a vision, but Andromache finds that she suddenly doesn’t care. She will seek this woman out to the ends of the Earth if she must.

She travels east, following the rising sun, only resting when her mare is slick with sweat. Every night she dreams of the woman, every morning she adjusts her course. She doesn’t remember the last time she had something novel and exciting in her long, long life. She has been alone so long, she must find this mysterious woman. Her mate.

Andromache is wandering through steppes that she recognizes from her dreams when her mark fades again. Her heart stutters, and she kicks her mount into a gallop. She doesn't know where she is going, but she feels something like destiny guiding her way. There’s a tingle of anticipation at the base of her spine. She crests another ridge and stops short. 

The woman from her dreams is laying in a the meager shelter provided by a large rock. 

She dismounts and rushes down the ridge towards her. “Still be alive, still be alive,” she chants to herself as she picks her way across the rocky terrain.

The closer she gets, the more damage she can see. Blood stains her mate’s tunic, her hair is matted with sweat, and dust is caked on her form head to toe. 

She’s the most beautiful thing Andromache has ever seen.

The woman’s eyes snap open. Quick as a flash, a dagger is in her hands, then in Andromache’s side. She scuttles away as Andromache hisses in pain. The woman sinks quickly into a defensive stance, arms shaking with fatigue but eyes alert and dangerous.

Andromache is half in love already.

She puts pressure on the wound, waiting for it to seal back over, blood flowing through her fingers and down her arms. She hears a gasp.

The woman urgently crawls back towards her, grabbing her bloodied arm and bringing it up to eye level. Andromache allows it, gaze steady. The woman turns pale and whispers something that she can’t understand, then looks up into Andromache’s eyes, saying it again, panic creeping into her tone. 

“It will pass.” Andromache mutters. She can already feel the fleash weaving itself back together. “Besides,” She grins a feral grin. “there is no one I would rather be stabbed by.”

The woman does not seem comforted by this, confusion on her face. Andromache slowly moves her hand on top of the woman’s, then guides it to the wound on her side.  
“See? Better.”

The woman’s face does a complicated dance, flickering between worry, confusion, and mistrust. She finally lands on something a little bit like hope. She nods, and sits back on her heels, giving Andromache some space. “Quynh.” She says clearly, pressing her hands to her own chest.

“ _Quynh_ ,” Andromache breathes, unable to tear her eyes from her face. She points to her own chest. “Andromache.”

“ _Andromache_.” Her name sounds like birdsong tripping over this woman’s lips. She rises to her feet, offering her hand to her mate.

Quynh nods. “Andromache.” She takes her hand.

* * *

Hundreds of years later, when Quynh is taken from her, Andromache considers cutting off her own arm. She wonders how many times she would have to do it to make it stick. No matter how long it took, it would be worth it to never again have to see the constant flicker of her mark scarring over and coming back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More like the woman of her dreams, am I right? haha oh no I made myself sad.
> 
> Thank you all again for the lovely comments and kudos! You make my day every day.
> 
> The next one's a big one, but it should be up by Monday. Up Next: Nile

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be adding tags as relevant, and I promise we'll earn that M rating. As always, thank you for reading.


End file.
